


at least a little bit

by benjaminschiffplatt



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mentions of Suicide, Murphy family dynamics, Post-Canon, cynthia needs to heal, either way cynthia gets some time to think about her son, honestly its really sad, mentions of drug use, well it could be during canon honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 01:39:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11347260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benjaminschiffplatt/pseuds/benjaminschiffplatt
Summary: It's so hard not to be bitter when eighteen years has been packed into cardboard boxes.





	at least a little bit

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to Bedroom Down the Hall and cried a lot, so Cynthia needs some healing
> 
> Also, this was written on my phone and is my first fic in years so it starts really slow and stilted but gets a little better as it goes on+please excuse any typos and let me know about them!

Cynthia Murphy has been standing in the doorway of Connor's room for two hours now, undecided on whether she should have just left the room alone to collect dust or not. She looks in at the books sitting on the desk and trash spilling onto the floor from where Connor's trashcan was lying on the floor, presumably kicked over at some point. Cynthia thinks she should at least clean that up, thinks about the bugs the Taco Bell wrappers and cigarette butts could attract, but makes no move to do anything about it. She just stands, lips pursed and eyebrows drawn, and looks around the room. 

Her eyes are drawn to the bookshelf, where Connor had books stacked haphazardly in piles instead of having them neatly shelved. Stepping into the room, she could see post it notes and bookmarks sticking out of every book in random places and she almost smiles. She reaches a hand out and feels her fingers ghost the pages of some worn out copy of A Separate Peace. Cynthia remembers seeing Connor shove the book into his bag one morning after breakfast recently. Her breath hitches when she thinks of it, knowing that soon she won't be able to think of Connor doing anything recently. 

She bites her wavering lip and turns away from the bookshelf. She takes a step towards the desk and begins to shuffle through the papers lying on top of Connor's laptop. Mostly homework assignments with no work done on them and half-ripped sheets of notebook paper, Cynthia tosses them to the side and picks up the laptop instead, running a hand over the bumpy stickers that covered the silver surface. She chuckles at the diverse collection of stickers, some band logos, a rainbow sticker she assumes was meant for ironic purposes, something that looks like a Van Gogh painting. She opens the laptop, surprised to find it still on and running after days of just sitting unused on the desk. The background is blurry, but looks like something related to one of the band stickers. Cynthia immediately regrets all the moments she'd shouted at Connor to turn his music down when it clearly meant so much to him. She regrets a lot of things now, though, and Connor's music doesn't quite make the top of the list.  
She logs out of the laptop and closes it with a sigh. She supposes she should bring up some boxes and a trash bag if she's going to do this properly.

 

It only takes Cynthia ten minutes to pick up all the actual trash thats been littered around the room and shove it into the black trash bag, making the room much neater and far less recognizable. With no garbage in the way, Cynthia has no choice but to see all the things that really made up Connor.

She starts by clearing his desk drawers, grimacing as she comes across a stash of drugs, which she throws away immediately. She loves Connor, but she does not love his drug habit. Or she didn't, anyway. Clearing the rest of the drawers, she throws away old pens and grade sheets, some she recognizes as reports with her signature on them to indicate her understanding that Connor was failing a class or two. The desk was empty soon enough, not that she expected it to be too full, knowing what Connor's work habits had been like.

The bookshelf is next, so Cynthia places a cardboard box at her feet and begins placing volumes into the box, separating them by size as she goes. A smile ghosts her face whenever she flips through a book, noticing Connor's handwriting in the margins of pages and ink underlining large chunks of paragraphs. She may not have ever understood his fascination with words when he was younger, but she loves the carefree way he handled every page he came across. He was like that even in middle school, coming home from school with a highliter in hand, sitting at the kitchen island as he covered pages and pages in notes and questions. She never understood, but thinks about the way he almost smiled on those afternoons. It had become rare for Connor to smile, even back then, and she cherised every silent moment for what it was. Cynthia places the books in the box now and quietly folds it closed. The shelves look so much bigger without the books to fill them up and it makes her heart hurt to look at them, but still she presses on, grabbing another box to fill from the dresser. 

She opens the top drawer, only to hold back a sob. Sitting at the top of the mess of clothing is a bunched up sweater, grey and pilled up from the washing machine. Connor had always hated that sweater, but wore it every Christmas because Cynthia insisted on it, because she ignored his half-protests that it was bunchy around the waist and itched at the seams. He'd looked so good in that sweater. She picks it up and balls it up in her hands, sinking to the ground as she buried her face in the fabric. As her knees hit the floor, she thinks about how it smells so much like Connor. Curled up against the side of the dresser, she sobs into the sweater, tears forming dark spots on the fabric. She cries and lets herself lose all dignity, screaming her lost son's name into the fabric of some sweater that he never even liked that she probably spent too much money on in the first place at some shop that Connor had probably never set foot in. She digs her fingers into the sweater, nails collecting fuzz, and cries for who knows how long. She cries until her tears are all but gone and it's just Cynthia alone on the floor of her son's bedroom with nothing but a sweater to hear her gutteral sobs.

 

And that's how Zoe finds her, hours later. Cynthia doesn't even hear her come home, doesn't hear her daughter calling out for her from downstairs, only recognizing that someone else is home when Zoe passes the door on the way to her room. She doubles back as she sees the door to Connor's room open, finding her mother lying on the floor, curled around a lump of grey wool. 

"It was Connor's," Cynthia offers as an explanation, her voice tired and weak as Zoe purses her lips. She just stands in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, trying not to judge her mother but failing, quite obviously.

Cynthia can't find herself to be angry with Zoe at this, just tired and sad, exhausted at having spent her afternoon screaming into an article of clothing. Zoe sighs after a moment and steps back, presumably going to walk away when Cynthia speaks again.

"I know we weren't perfect," she says, "aren't perfect. But I loved Connor, I love him. And I love you, too. So if anything, there's that." She finds it in herself to stand, holding the sweater close to her body like a lifeline, and steps past Zoe into the hallway, carefully closing the door behind her.

"I think I'll finish up tomorrow," Cynthia says. She's almost surprised when she makes it to her bedroom before crumpling back into a heap, curling on her mattress and cries for her children for the second time that day.

 

Hours later, Zoe has long gone, met up with some friends for dinner or something, anything to get out the house, Cynthia knows. She doesn't mind, she knows that these walls can be suffocating and after the events of the past week, or even of the day, Cynthia can't blame her daughter for wanting out.

She herself is sat at the kitchen island, a cup of tea warm in her hands. The steam rises up to meet her face, but she only notices when a tear slides down her face and makes a noise as it hits the tea in the mug, startling her. She hadn't realized she was crying again.

Keys in the front door pulls Cynthia's attention away from herself for a moment as her realizes that her husband must be home. She quickly wipes her face and hopes the steam will provide and excuse for why her eyes are so red. She chuckles as she thinks about how she could use Connor's weed stash she'd found as an excuse, too. 

Larry is surprised to find his wife in the kitchen with nothing but a cup of tea.

"No dinner tonight?" He tries to joke, but she just flashes a forced smile at him.

He sighs and rubs a hand over his face, too tired from the day to do anything emotional with his evening.

"Are you alright, Cynthia?" He finally asks, after moments of watching her stare vacantly into her mug.

Her eyes flash with something akin to anger and she shakes her head at him.

"It's just hard not to be bitter when eighteen years is packed away in boxes."

"Ah, so you, uh, cleared out Connor's room today?" Larry asks, hesitant as he sits down beside her.

"I only got halfway through. I just can't do it," she turns to him, her body facing his now. "Did you know his laptop background is of the band he likes? He has their stickers all over his room."

There's a silence for a minute that Larry doesn't dare break. Lucky for him, he thinks, when Cynthia continues.

"It makes me think about every time I told him to turn his music down or that you called it white noise or-"

"Cynthia, stop that," he stands up, ready to leave the room now, "there's no way we could have-"

"There were plenty of ways we could have known, Larry," she says, her voice tight and her body tense. The hand on her mug begins to shake. "He told us and we didn't listen to him, we should have listened to him and now my son is dead."

"Our son is dead, Cynthia. Not yours, ours. I was his parent, too."

"You sure didn't act like it!"

Larry picks up his keys from the counter and shakes his head, "I don't have time for this."

"Like you didn't have time for Connor? Like you didn't have time for our eighteen year old son who killed himself? He only had eighteen years, but you're the one who doesn't have time for this? He's never going to have another minute and it's our fault, Larry," Cynthia shouts, desperation in her voice. If she couldn't reach out to Connor when he was alive, she'll try to reach someone who still is.

Larry, though, ignores her and slams the front door behind him on his way out.

Cynthia, still sitting against the kitchen island, thinks about the boxes upstairs and takes a sip of her tea. It burns and she remembers how hoarse her voice was after she cried earlier. She knows it will only be worse after yelling at Larry but can't bring herself to care that much beyond having to remember to keep quiet at her yoga class the next day.

With a sigh, Cynthia sets her tea down and stands up. Her back cracks and she is reminded of how old she's getting, which in turn reminds her that Connor will never get to be any older. She bites her lips, knowing that she'll never get over that particular fact. She knows that when Zoe turns nineteen, she'll cry, but not because her daughter is growing up, it'll be because her son will never get to be that old, and it hurts her heart more than any other heartbreak she could ever possibly imagine.

Solemnly, Cynthia makes her way upstairs to lay down, exhausted from the day she's had, but stops in front of the door to Connor's room as she walks down the hall to her own bedroom. She just leans against the wall, staring at the door as if she were waiting for Connor himself to come out and make a fuss about having to go to school. Taking a deep breath, she wills herself to open the door and finds herself looking into the near empty room with tears in her eyes. She doesn't know why she's surprised that she keeps crying, her son had just died after all, but the wetness running down her cheeks is a shock every time.

"I'm so sorry, Connor," she says to the empty room, her voice small and rough. "I wish I did more for you."

"You did a lot, Mom," Zoe says from the doorway, shocking Cynthia.

"Zoe," she says, wiping her eyes, "I thought you were out with friends?"

"Alana had to go home early, but it doesn't really matter," Zoe shrugs. "What are you doing back in here? Aren't you finishing tomorrow?"

"No, eighteen years is going to be more of a three day job, apparently," she tries to joke but her voice is flat and void of humor. 

Zoe steps into the room and perches herself on the edge of the bed, patting the spot next to her as they both look around the room. Cynthia takes the seat.

Zoe leans her head against her mom's shoulder and speaks after a minute or two of tense silence.

"You know, Connor would be so mad that you're going through his stuff."

Cynthia allows a small smile to cross her face.  
"Yeah, he would."

Then they're quiet again, but it's not as tense as it was before. Cynthia carefully places her hand over Zoe's where it rests on the bed.

"It's okay to miss him, you know."

"And it's okay to be angry with him, Mom," Zoe is quick to point out.

"I know," she says after a moment. "I'm just so sad, I don't think I have it in me to be angry right now."

She can feel Zoe nod against her.

"That's okay, too," she says.

Then, "I think I'm too angry to be sad."

"I'm so sorry, Zoe. I tried my best and it still wasn't enough, and now he's gone."

"Mom, no-"

"No, he's gone and he's never coming back. I'll never see him smile again, or even be able to fight with him. I never thought I'd miss fighting with him, but I do. A lot."

"... Yeah."

"He'll never get to do anything, ever again. No more fights, no more school. He'll never go to college. I'm not supposed to be packing his things in cardboard boxes because he's gone, I'm supposed to be helping him pack his things to go with him to college." Cynthia's voice breaks as she speaks over her tears and Zoe finally looks up at her mother, seeing her in a new light. She wraps her arms around Cynthia, who immediately clings to Zoe like she's the last real thing in the world as she continues to cry. Zoe swallows, urging herself not to begin crying for her mother's sake before she replies.

"I know, Mom, I know." And she does, now, at least a little bit.

**Author's Note:**

> also i wish i hadnt written it in present tense but its too late now oops sorry
> 
> hope that was satisfactory considering i wrote it at like four am after sobbing over the cut songs


End file.
